Who is Quaithe?

[Megorova]

13 minutes ago, Alexis-something-Rose said:

If Quaithe had given Dany the smallest of hints about who the Harpy was (if there's such a thing as that) who the people conducting this guerrilla warfare against her were, then she may never have had to marry Hizdhar in the first place.

Dany's marriage with Hizdahr was unavoidable, it's a part of a prophecy, given to her by the Undying - three mounts must you ride . . . one to bed and one to dread and one to love; either those "mounts" are Dany's three husbands (Drogo, Hizdahr, and Jon), or those three mounts will bring her to her three husbands (her silver brought her to Drogo's "bed" on their wedding night, etc.). While Dany's escape with Drogon back to Dothraki Sea is that "to go forward you must go back". Dany has to return back to Dothraki, because they have her son. Before Dany will go to Westeros, she has to be reunited with Rhaego, and he has to claim one of her dragons. So, even if Quaithe did revealed to Dany, what's going to happen, and Dany tried to avoid it, all those things still would have happened. 

[Tyrion1991]

36 minutes ago, Alexis-something-Rose said:

Whoever Quaithe is, I'm not sure that she's Dany's friend. 

Maybe it's all the rereads and so much time to think about this, you sort of start to wonder.

Quaithe comes to Dany in ADwD after 9 people have been murdered by the sons of the Harpy. We are talking freedmen and Unsullied. But instead of trying to help her with that situation, she is warning her about people who are thousands of leagues away from her. And IIRC (because I don't have my book handy), this is the same chapter when Dany locks up her dragons.

If Quaithe had given Dany the smallest of hints about who the Harpy was (if there's such a thing as that) who the people conducting this guerrilla warfare against her were, then she may never have had to marry Hizdhar in the first place. She might have traveled to Westeros with Quentyn instead and maybe ended up linking up with Jon Connington & Co in Volantis. 

Quaithe seems to have her own agenda where Dany is concerned and she seems adamant that Dany has to follow the path she laid before her with the whole "To go north you must go south . . ." business. And if Quaithe has magical abilities that go beyond her being a shadowbinder, then she might be trying to manipulate an outcome/prophecy she might have foreseen. 

And these things never end well and this imo makes her no better than Melisandre and what she has been up to with Stannis. 

 

In her defence, IF her goal is to stop the Others and RESTORE BALANCE to Ice and Fire to save humanity; a few thugs in Mereen aren’t that important.

Its hard to tell. Obviously it’s very much a fantasy trope that mystics have to give cryptic advice rather than straight forward points, but you have to wonder why Quiathe won’t tell Dany “dead people, lots of them; crazy Ice Elves. Go! Go! Do it now!”

So I am assuming she needs things to happen in a certain order and is worried about upsetting that by telling Dany too much or distracting her.

Or she’s a Cthulhu cult leader trying to lead the worlds saviour astray.

[Lost Melnibonean]

2 hours ago, Alexis-something-Rose said:

Whoever Quaithe is, I'm not sure that she's Dany's friend. 

Maybe it's all the rereads and so much time to think about this, you sort of start to wonder.

Quaithe comes to Dany in ADwD after 9 people have been murdered by the sons of the Harpy. We are talking freedmen and Unsullied. But instead of trying to help her with that situation, she is warning her about people who are thousands of leagues away from her. And IIRC (because I don't have my book handy), this is the same chapter when Dany locks up her dragons.

If Quaithe had given Dany the smallest of hints about who the Harpy was (if there's such a thing as that) who the people conducting this guerrilla warfare against her were, then she may never have had to marry Hizdhar in the first place. She might have traveled to Westeros with Quentyn instead and maybe ended up linking up with Jon Connington & Co in Volantis. 

Quaithe seems to have her own agenda where Dany is concerned and she seems adamant that Dany has to follow the path she laid before her with the whole "To go north you must go south . . ." business. And if Quaithe has magical abilities that go beyond her being a shadowbinder, then she might be trying to manipulate an outcome/prophecy she might have foreseen. 

And these things never end well and this imo makes her no better than Melisandre and what she has been up to with Stannis. 

I agree. Daenerys is a tragic character whose arc will end in bitterness and disappointment. She is not the Promised Prince, but she is the Mother of Dragons, and thos dragons are needed to win the War for the Dawn. So, Shiera Seastar is doing her part to make sure that Daenerys does hers. She will die in Westeros, but she must go. 

[Tyrion1991]

3 hours ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

I agree. Daenerys is a tragic character whose arc will end in bitterness and disappointment. She is not the Promised Prince, but she is the Mother of Dragons, and thos dragons are needed to win the War for the Dawn. So, Shiera Seastar is doing her part to make sure that Daenerys does hers. She will die in Westeros, but she must go. 

 

See the problem is two fold. George has repeatedly implied that Dany has some sort of destiny. IMO it’s that she’s meant to fight the Others but not destined to be Queen. I think it would be a bit much if she not only isn’t destined to be Queen of Westeros but was incidental or trivial to defeating the Others. A blood sacrifice wouldn’t really be a subversion because Dany has repeatedly been willing to give her life for other people (offering her life to Mirri to save Drogo). Her destiny might not be what she thinks but she has to have A destiny. Otherwise all the visions she has had don’t make any sense. I would hate to have it turn out that she’s just some random who got lucky.

The second point is that I simply disagree on principle that the actual saviour/chosen one should be Jon or Bran. These two are the most textbook fantasy characters. It turning out they have a destiny wouldn’t be subverting the trope of the chosen one since they are both cookie cutter tropes. In fact these two are more cookie cutter than Dany because it’s unheard of to make a girl the chosen one in a fantasy story. Indeed I am still scratching my head as to why George picked a female character to make a satire of the chosen one archetype. It has to be an actual outsider, but make sense. 

 

 

[Megorova]

57 minutes ago, Tyrion1991 said:

it’s unheard of to make a girl the chosen one in a fantasy story. 

You forgot about Mother Mary - main female character, that was the chosen one, in the most popular fantasy story (the Bible). Mary's destiny was to be Jesus' mom. Similarly, Dany's destiny is to be the mother of "dragons" - Rhaego, and then his sister-wife, birthing whom Dany, probably, will die. That's that bittersweet ending.

[BlackDread12]

8 hours ago, Megorova said:

I think that Quaithe is Shiera Seastar, based on 1. info in Dany's last chapter in ADWD, where she a) identified whispering stars as Quaithe, and b) saw that her mask is made of starlight, and 2. Dany's IX chapter in AGOT, where in her fevered dream she saw whispering and smiling stars, and ghosts with eyes colored like jades, opals, tourmalines, and amethysts. All of those four stones either bi-colored, have dual nature of coloring, or there are many varieties of them. There are green and blue jades; opals are blue-green stones; there are blue tourmalines, and green tourmalines, and even bi-colored blue-green or green-blue tourmalines; and even though amethysts are purple, they have secondary hue, it's either red or blue. And Shiera Seastar had mismatched blue green eyes. In Yi Ti there were emperors - Jade Emperor, Tourmaline Emperor, etc. <- they are a red herring, to make readers think, that those ghosts in Dany's dream, are people from the past, while actually it was one person, not many (that's why in Dany's dream they shouted as one), and that person had mismatched blue-green eyes. And there's only one character in ASOIAF, that has mismatched green and blue eyes. There are others with blue and black, green and black eyes, but besides Shiera, there's no one else with green-blue eyes. So, those ghosts in faded raiment of kings in Dany's dream, is Shiera Seastar in red-black attire, which is a traditional coloring for Targaryen court, who are Kings of the past, thus her raiment of kings is faded. Shiera is still alive, even though she is over 110 years old, because she's a user of blood magic, she was bathing in blood to stay young and beautiful (Egg mentioned this in The Sworn Sword novel).

Also Quaithe/Shiera is the Three-Eyed Crow. Am I really the only reader of ASOIAF, that have figured it out?

I thought it was assumed that Bloodraven is Three-Eyed Raven.

[Rose of Red Lake]

6 hours ago, Tyrion1991 said:

Its hard to tell. Obviously it’s very much a fantasy trope that mystics have to give cryptic advice rather than straight forward points, but you have to wonder why Quiathe won’t tell Dany “dead people, lots of them; crazy Ice Elves. Go! Go! Do it now!”

The trope goes back to the Greeks. Quaithe is like the Oracle at Delphi. Quaithe has to be written cryptically because if she was clear, she would give away the story. As Tor.com explains, this is why prophecies are written in the "Delphic style" which involves a prophecy twist. Fantasy authors picked up on this and Tolkien even used it in the Hobbit.

Quaithe (or is it Dany's imagination of her?) talking about "identity" leads me to believe that Daenerys is going to get to a point where she "remembers who she is," which is the mother of dragons (aka Grendel's mom). It's not really who Daenerys is as some objective state that's locked in to the future, it's just that Daenerys self-fulfills this image of what she believes these Oracles are presenting to her.

[Lost Melnibonean]

1 hour ago, Tyrion1991 said:

 

See the problem is two fold. George has repeatedly implied that Dany has some sort of destiny. IMO it’s that she’s meant to fight the Others but not destined to be Queen. I think it would be a bit much if she not only isn’t destined to be Queen of Westeros but was incidental or trivial to defeating the Others. A blood sacrifice wouldn’t really be a subversion because Dany has repeatedly been willing to give her life for other people (offering her life to Mirri to save Drogo). Her destiny might not be what she thinks but she has to have A destiny. Otherwise all the visions she has had don’t make any sense. I would hate to have it turn out that she’s just some random who got lucky.

The second point is that I simply disagree on principle that the actual saviour/chosen one should be Jon or Bran. These two are the most textbook fantasy characters. It turning out they have a destiny wouldn’t be subverting the trope of the chosen one since they are both cookie cutter tropes. In fact these two are more cookie cutter than Dany because it’s unheard of to make a girl the chosen one in a fantasy story. Indeed I am still scratching my head as to why George picked a female character to make a satire of the chosen one archetype. It has to be an actual outsider, but make sense. 

First, let me just say that I like Daenerys's character, but there is little doubt in my mind that Jon is the promised prince. Here is what I think will happen to Daenerys. Even with such an outcome, her character would not be "incidental." 

[Lost Melnibonean]

21 minutes ago, BlackDread12 said:

I thought it was assumed that Bloodraven is Three-Eyed Raven.

Just so. 

[Megorova]

17 minutes ago, BlackDread12 said:

I thought it was assumed that Bloodraven is Three-Eyed Raven.

Yes, it was assumed by Bran and Co, and by majority of ASOIAF's readers, that Bloodraven is the Three-Eyed Crow. Doesn't mean, that they were right.

P.S. There is no such thing, as the Three-Eyed Raven, in ASOIAF-books.

[LynnS]

1 hour ago, Tyrion1991 said:

Her destiny might not be what she thinks but she has to have A destiny.

Even Dany questions returning to Westeros to claim the throne since she believes she won't have any more children and there are no other living Targaryens (that she knows of).  I think it more likely that she will back Aegon for the throne when she learns of his existence.  She certainly won't marry him.

 

 

[Tyrion1991]

13 minutes ago, Lost Melnibonean said:

First, let me just say that I like Daenerys's character, but there is little doubt in my mind that Jon is the promised prince. Here is what I think will happen to Daenerys. Even with such an outcome, her character would not be "incidental." 

 

Wow, the ranger from the north is the perfect King destined to save the realm. Who’d have thought. 

Dany having a child, yes; if she had one. That could be an emotionally satisfying conclusion. With Jon, our most likely candidate? A “man” who’s already said no to love once? Who is realistically only going to have one book, if that, to create what’s meant to be the central romance? I don’t buy it. No if she had a child it would have to be a big deal and not just fan service for Jon fans so that he gets to have his way with Dany.

I cant for the life of me understand the admiration Jon gets. iMO at best he’s a bland cookie cutter and at worst he’s outright offensive. He’s never taken actual responsibility for his screw ups and is a vehicle for the author to push his love vs duty, thinly veiled bros before hos rubbish. I felt nothing when he got stabbed to be honest.

 

 

[Tyrion1991]

32 minutes ago, LynnS said:

Even Dany questions returning to Westeros to claim the throne since she believes she won't have any more children and there are no other living Targaryens (that she knows of).  I think it more likely that she will back Aegon for the throne when she learns of his existence.  She certainly won't marry him.

 

 

 

She might. But I think given her mistrust and the impact of the prophecies she’ll likely think Aegon/Arriane are stealing her throne and attack them. Dothraki invasion etc etc etc.

[Megorova]

1 hour ago, Tyrion1991 said:

Wow, the ranger from the north is the perfect King destined to save the realm. Who’d have thought.

He's a parallel to Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings, who was also a ranger. Both of them are secret princes, that were raised by their uncles (in Aragorn's case by his 49 (or so) times great uncle). Dany is Jon's Arwen.

1 hour ago, Tyrion1991 said:

A “man” who’s already said no to love once?

He didn't loved Ygritte. When they first met, he didn't even liked her looks. He gradualy grew fond of her, only after they had sex. And at first he didn't even wanted her, she was the one, who was constantly pestering him, and trying to get into his pants. And first time they had sex, she basically raped him. Later he did developed feelings for her, and she started to seem more attractive to him, but that's only because of sex. He even started to contemplate, that he can stay with the wildlings, and live his life with Ygritte as his wife, but he didn't stayed, because he didn't actually loved her. And Val. She's beautiful, and she interests him as a person, but he doesn't love her, same as he didn't loved Ygritte. So, Jon never actually said no to love, he just haven't fell in love yet.

[Tyrion1991]

1 hour ago, Megorova said:

He's a parallel to Aragorn from The Lord of the Rings, who was also a ranger. Both of them are secret princes, that were raised by their uncles (in Aragorn's case by his 49 (or so) times great uncle). Dany is Jon's Arwen.

He didn't loved Ygritte. When they first met, he didn't even liked her looks. He gradualy grew fond of her, only after they had sex. And at first he didn't even wanted her, she was the one, who was constantly pestering him, and trying to get into his pants. And first time they had sex, she basically raped him. Later he did developed feelings for her, and she started to seem more attractive to him, but that's only because of sex. He even started to contemplate, that he can stay with the wildlings, and live his life with Ygritte as his wife, but he didn't stayed, because he didn't actually loved her. And Val. She's beautiful, and she interests him as a person, but he doesn't love her, same as he didn't loved Ygritte. So, Jon never actually said no to love, he just haven't fell in love yet.

 

Aragon isnt an obscure character to be referencing. He’s one of the most well known characters in fantasy and the archetypical hero. This comes across as generic and even derivative. Perhaps this is a result of the series beginning before the films in the early 90s but it doesn’t translate well. 

 

I think he did love her. It wouldn’t make sense for Aemon to tell him to chose between love and duty for him not to face that test in this instance. But we are meant to believe that Jon siding with the NW is a courageous act that shows his emotional maturity; because it would have been selfish to help the Wildlings. Not that the NW are a broken, useless and corrupt institution who have failed at their primary purpose of warning the realms, and are preventing hundreds of thousands of people escaping the Others. How is Qhorin putting people to death to stop a warning okay (more of that Northern stoicism) but the wildlings killing that peasant makes Jon go “ohhh that’s bad that”?  The difference is that the NW are a status quo power and so George is saying it’s always better to let things tick over rather than rock the boat. 

[chrisdaw]

Shiera Seastar.

She is a curious sorcerer with an appetite for arcane knowledge testing the limits of what can be achieved. She suspects or understands humans can second life dragons. She is guiding Euron and Dany for this purpose, and so is bringing the two together. She may understand that it is Dany's destiny to second life a dragon and defeat the Others and is trying to guide her for that purpose. She may just be doing it for fun, because she's mischievous and enjoys the carnage she can create. She may herself intend to second life a dragon and its all preparation and manipulation to that end.

[Lady Blizzardborn]

On 7/31/2019 at 7:02 PM, Jova Snow said:

What makes you think she is helping Daenerys when she is causing her to go paranoid instead? Was Quentyn Martell ever a threat to Daenerys? Is the Lion and Griffin arriving together to Mereen? What about Mummer's Dragon? Did Quentyn ever met "faegon" or was he with Tattered Prince all the time? Or with Daenerys? 

She didn't say Quentyn was a threat. She said not to trust any of them, probably because all of them had their own agendas, their own plans, their own ideas of what Dany should or would do. They were all going to play the man card and expected the woman to fall in line, with no regard to what she wants or needs. And Quentyn lied his way in, so there's that. Then when he finds out he can't go through with his plan he decides to steal one of her children. Yeah. Totally a guy Dany should trust.

The Lion and Griffin were together when she mentioned them. She was basically giving a traffic report of men with ulterior motives who were headed in Dany's direction. 

The Mummer's Dragon (which fits whether he's Aegon or not) was also on his way to Dany at the time. But he didn't have to be with Quentyn.  The Sun's Sun is a relative, and a young man who expects to marry her. The Mummer's Dragon is a possible relative (even if he's a Blackfyre), and a young man who expects to marry her. 

The other two pairings are of powerful men who expect Dany to fall in line with what they want. Victarion wants her for his wife, and to "steal" her from his brother. Moqorro seems to want her to save the world. JonCon wants her to marry Aegon and support his claim to the Iron Throne. And Tyrion wants to use her for revenge.

It's also possible they were in age order, descending. Moqorro and Victarion are probably older than JonCon, and JonCon and Tyrion are both older than Quent and Aegon.

She also mentioned the pale mare, which did show up, and the perfumed seneschal--and no one agrees on who that is so far. And she said to remember the Undying, likely because Euron has some Qartheen warlocks on his ship and he's after her too.

It's not making her paranoid to warn Dany of who is coming, and that none of them have her best interests in mind. If I had a friend who could see that stuff for me, I'd have her on speed-dial.

When Dany tells Quaithe to speak plainly about what she wants she says "To show you the way." Does Quaithe have her own agenda? Sure. But she wasn't wrong in her warnings to Dany.

 

[Lady Blizzardborn]

9 hours ago, Tyrion1991 said:

Wow, the ranger from the north is the perfect King destined to save the realm. Who’d have thought. 

He's not a ranger. If you're going to mock, do it properly.

And there is no one person who is going to save the realm. It's going to be a group effort. 

[Tyrion1991]

46 minutes ago, Lady Blizzardborn said:

He's not a ranger. If you're going to mock, do it properly.

And there is no one person who is going to save the realm. It's going to be a group effort. 

 

It’s worth mocking. I will not bow to this ranger from the North.  

The NW are all rangers meant to warn people of the Others and he went ranging beyond the wall being tutored by the First Ranger. It’s semantics to say “but he never had that title specifically so you can’t call him generic level 6 ranger”. This is like saying Bran is never given the title Wizard so I can’t mock his arc, or he isn’t a Hobbit so I can’t say it’s like Frodo going to Mt Doom.

Thats certainly not the way I hear it at all. I hear very loudly that people want it to be Jon because they think it’s some amazing twist if the worlds saviour is the young ranger who is the “hidden” King... Plus very specifically a desire to see Dany ruined because she’s not humble enough and not backing the status quo like the Starks. 

To get back to Quiathe. The idea I see implicitly floated is that Jon hasn’t asked for a special destiny and therefore he automatically deserves to be a special noodle. Whereas Dany has been arrogant enough to dare believe that she ever had an important role to play and should accept that she was only ever meant to be a support character like Nynaeve from Wheel of Time. Would you believe it Jon and Bran are actually the guys. But Jon isn’t having people scream at him he’s the messiah every five minutes or having vivid magical dreams or having prophets tell him this; so it’s not a fair comparison. He is not tempted to think this. It’s the same issue I take with these same people who say Jon is the better leader (a safe pair of hands, unlike irrational Dany) even though none of the Starks face problems of comparable scale to Dany since as of Dance none of them are at the same power scale. Jon can’t just do what he wants in the NW; they stab him when he actually tried. So of course when Dany sneezes people die but Jons failures get be passed off as minor.

If the purpose of Danys arc is that “you should have stepped aside for the real heroes” and “we need a safe pair of hands not a bloody saviour”; I don’t see how George does that without appearing hypocritical. How is Jon taking Wildlings and Giants to Winterfell to purge the Bolton’s and Freys not morally suspect? I am doubting Jon is going to ever have a Mirri Maz Dur character hold him to account for stepping on the little people; same as his brother. 

[Lucia Targaryen]

Alt Shift X made an interesting video arguing that Quaithe is Shiera Seastar. I highly recommend watching his YouTube channel.